Elegy XIX

WHOEVER loves, if he do not proposeThe right true end of love, he's one that goesTo sea for nothing but to make him sick.Love is a bear-whelp born : if we o'er-lickOur love, and force it new strange shapes to take,We err, and of a lump a monster make.Were not a calf a monster, that were grownFaced like a man, though better than his own ?Perfection is in unity ; preferOne woman first, and then one thing in her.I, when I value gold, may think uponThe ductileness, the application,The wholesomeness, the ingenuity,From rust, from soil, from fire ever free ;But if I love it, 'tis because 'tis madeBy our new nature, use, the soul of trade. All this in women we might think upon,—If women had them—and yet love but one.Can men more injure women than to sayThey love them for that, by which they're not they ?Makes virtue woman ? must I cool my bloodTill I both be, and find one wise and good ?May barren angels love so. But if weMake love to woman, virtue is not she,As beauty is not, nor wealth. He that strays thusFrom her to hers is more adulterousThan if he took her maid. Search every sphereAnd firmament, our Cupid is not there.He's an infernal God, and undergroundWith Pluto dwells, where gold and fire abound.Men to such gods their sacrificing coalsDid not on altars lay, but pits and holes.Although we see celestial bodies moveAbove the earth, the earth we till and love.So we her airs contemplate, words and heart,And virtues, but we love the centric part. Nor is the soul more worthy, or more fitFor love, than this, as infinite as it.But in attaining this desired placeHow much they err, that set out at the face ?The hair a forest is of ambushes,Of springes, snares, fetters, and manacles ;The brow becalms us when 'tis smooth and plain,And when 'tis wrinkled, shipwrecks us again ;Smooth, 'tis a paradise, where we would haveImmortal stay, but wrinkled 'tis a grave.The nose, like to the first meridian, runsNot 'twixt an east and west, but 'twixt two suns ;It leaves a cheek, a rosy hemisphere,On either side, and then directs us whereUpon the islands fortunate we fall,Not faint Canaries, but ambrosial,Her swelling lips, to which when we are come,We anchor there, and think ourselves at home,For they seem all ; there Sirens' songs and thereWise Delphic oracles do fill the ear.There, in a creek where chosen pearls do swell,The remora, her cleaving tongue, doth dwell.These and the glorious promontory, her chin,O'erpast, and the straight Hellespont betweenThe Sestos and Abydos of her breasts,Not of two lovers, but two loves, the nests,Succeeds a boundless sea, but yet thine eyeSome island moles may scattered there descry ;And sailing towards her India, in that wayShall at her fair Atlantic navel stay.Though there the current be the pilot made,Yet, ere thou be where thou shouldst be embay'd,Thou shalt upon another forest set,Where many shipwreck, and no further get.When thou art there, consider what this chaseMisspent by thy beginning at the face. Rather set out below ; practise thy art ;Some symmetry the foot hath with that partWhich thou dost seek, and is thy map for that,Lovely enough to stop, but not stay at.Least subject to disguise and change it is ; Men say the devil never can change his ;It is the emblem that hath figuredFirmness ; 'tis the first part that comes to bed.Civility we see refined ; the kiss,Which at the face began, transplanted is,Since to the hand, since to the imperial knee,Now at the papal foot delights to be.If kings think that the nearer way, and doRise from the foot, lovers may do so too ;For, as free spheres move faster far than canBirds, whom the air resists, so may that manWhich goes this empty and ethereal way,Than if at beauty's elements he stay.Rich Nature in women wisely madeTwo purses, and their mouths aversely laid.They then which to the lower tribute owe,That way which that exchequer looks must go ;He which doth not, his error is as great,As who by clyster gives the stomach meat.